Concertinas, Penny Whistles and other things

 I haven't really touched the concertina since it came back. As it is in a box, it is a faff to get it out so it just sits there looking at me. Plus, there is the same old problem in that I can't play a lot of my music due to the limits imposed by the 20 button instrument.

So, what am I doing with my time - both a lot actually. I seem to spend a lot of time sitting down with my eyes shut - not sleeping but just idle. This has never been me but, I suppose, at 76 it is to be expected. I am spending most of my "spare" time on plastic models (see my Gentle Scale Models blog).  I explain why I am not doing any model railways on my model railway blog.

However, this blog is about other things than models and railways.  I have taken up the Irish tin or penny whistle.  I bought one off Amazon for £9.95 and was finding it a bit of a handful. The problem with a penny whistle, for me, isn't the fingering as it is the same as when I was playing a fife in the cadet band back when I was 14. It's getting to play it without and streaks and whistles (it isn't known as a whistle without a reason!).  I was having some difficulty with this so, unbeknown to me, my wife bought me a better one. This one was a whole £11.18 so it had to be better, didn't it? In fact it was. The beauty of the whistle is that it can play in three keys easily. I comes as a whistle in D (two sharps) but, with simple fingering changes, it can also play in G (one sharp) and C (no sharps). A lot of folk music is written in D to suit the melodion so I have a wider range of music that I can play off the sheet without the mental transposition that I had to go through with the concertina. I still have the option of playing tunes in F (one flat) by doing that mental transposing but not much folk music is written in that key and I am certainly not going to start playing jazz - grin.

In addition, I have started another tapestry. This is a cushion destined for our new armchair. As Valerie is a big Lowry fan, she chose the Bothy "Street Scene".

So far, I have spent a couple of hours on it. The first was sorting out the thread colour patterns and the second was spent putting in around 200 stitches. As the tapestry is 14" x 10" with 12 stitches per inch - equalling - 20,160 stitches - it might take some time at that rate! Never mind, it fills in that hour from 7pm to 8pm when we entertain mother-in-law with something - currently rerunning around 12 series of Michael Portillo's railway journeys! (Not bad the first time round but after 4 times it gets a bit tedious).

Concertinas, Tapestries and Sewing

Apart from my model railway and making scale plastic models, the three activities mentioned above cover pretty much my time - except for reading detective novels, of course.

Ok, so I need to bring the Concertina situation up to date. I did return the 30 button to Hobgoblin in Canterbury. In fact, they even paid the return postage which I thought was excellent. I then travelled up to Stoke-on-Trent to visit one of the main concertina suppliers. I found him quite off-hand considering that I was spending £2,000.00. He gave me £400 for my 20 button, which was more than I paid for it. When I got home, it didn't sound right, so I took it to Mike Acott, who fixed one of the reeds. However, I still felt that the main C reed on the C line wasn't right but couldn't get anyone to listen. However, once you think something is wrong, even if it isn't, the thought won't go away so I asked to revert the transaction. I got my old 20 button back along with a nice payment. The 20 button came back in a nice wooden concertina box and new bellows. I had to accept a reduced price for it as he had made the upgrades. When the concertina came home, I was so fed up with the whole process that I put it away and that is where it stayed for over a year.

This means that I haven't changed my ability to play music (the current concertina doesn't have enough notes to play the type of music that I like) so it has been quite easy for me to let go. I bought some new music the other day so I am getting back in but the problems still won't go away.

I spent some of the last year sewing a tapestry for a tea cosy. Tapestries take quite a time to sew. The particular one that I was sewing here was a 10 stitches to the inch = 10 x 10 = 100 stitches to the square inch. The tea cosy is 12" x 8" = 96 square inches = 96 *100 = 9,600 stitches. We wanted a cosy for the morning coffee pot. We have one I made a few years ago for the teapot so this would make a nice pair.

It is a bit out of shape but I don't really have the means in the flat to do a lot of work in straightening it. However, it needs making up - the inside needs to be a thick wadding to keep the heat in and then there are three sides to be made using a contrasting material. You can just see the red fabric with white dots. The wadding comes from The Cheap Shop down in Tiptree and works wonderfully.

Now we come to the third hobby. I am quite keen on patchwork/quilting. It is a technical exercise as there are patterns to be worked out, sizes to be calculated and some precision sewing to get any item complete. In the past, as you can see from the blog, I have made pillow covers and shopping bags. Now, with the lock down, I found that I still had a sewing kit for a runner that would fit perfectly across the top of our bedroom drawer unit.

Off I went with my normal gusto. However, I forgot that I hadn't done any mitred corners in some years and made a complete mess of it all. I used up some of the material so I had to get some more. Plus, I didn't have any wadding or backing fabric. Some time ago, when we cleared out the Marklin railway, we also threw out all of our unused fabric and wadding! The kit for the runner was bought in Bungay at the SewAndSew shop. I called them and they agreed to put together a pack of stuff - replacement fabric, some backing and wadding plus a small supply of fabric in what are known as "fat quarters". This would enable me to not only finish the kit but to also get some practice under my belt.

That practice hasn't gone too well. I now know the techniques I need to not only do the mitres but also to fit the edge binding. However, the actual processes didn't go too well as my sewing machine is a "cheapish" John Lewis machine. Instead of starting up smoothly, it tends to jump into action making it difficult to control. As a new machine would be £200 - £300 I am reluctant to jump into it. A neighbour has offered to lend me their spare machine so, if that happens, it will show me whether it is me or the machine! We shall see!

That didn't go as planned

From day one, I wasn't happy with the new concertina. The G/D button on the right hand seemed a bit weak. I took it to be fixed but it still seemed to be not right. I tried to arrange with Barleycorn to look at it but I ended up keeping it. Finally, I took it back to Mike who found a small leak. This fixed, I started to play it when the problems with my hands started to arise.

My arthritis seems to be under control through painkillers with the exception of my hands, which hurt all the time. Playing the 20 buttons was no problem but getting my hands across to the new row was causing issues. Finally, I had to admit that it wasn't going to work.

Barleycorn have agreed to take the new concertina back and to give me back my original one (which hasn't sold, thank goodness). I have ended up losing some money, as Barleycorn have done some work on my one which needs to be paid for. It goes back by UPS tomorrow and I am hoping that they don't find any issues as it was recently checked by Mike Acott and issued with a good bill of health.

I am getting my old one back and a nice round sum which will go towards my new model railway project. The world turns and turns!

Prospects of an upgraded Concertina

This was my current concertina. It is a Lachenal 20 button C/G Anglo. It dates from late Victorian times so is a bit precious. It has a lovely tone and plays beautifully. The problem is that it can only play in two keys - C and G.  This makes it very restrictive for playing a lot of the music written between 1900 and 1950 as these often use other keys or lots of "accidentals". The way out of this was to acquire a 30 button concertina - thus giving me all of the required extra note. However, these are normally snapped up by players of Irish music, which uses concertinas as a regular part of the line up in the bands. The result is that there is quite a jump in price to a 30 button, let alone a concertina to match my existing one.

I have had to close down my model railway for the foreseable future so I came up with a "cunning plan". As I couldn't use all of my model railways stuff but was playing my concertina every day, why not dispose of all it and use the funds for my other active hobbies - playing the concertina and making scale plastic models.

The selling of the N gauge stuff went very well - apart from owing EBay £300.00 in fees! It was a shame as I had only bought it all this year but there we are. Suddenly I could look at buying a £750 Lachenal 30 button concertina. 

With my new found finance, I went down to Canterbury to spend £750 and pick up a Lachenal 30 button and then went on to Faversham where they have a very nice model shop. I bought a complex model kit of an A1J Skyraider in 1:32 - it is nice having a large stash fund!

Playing the concertina showed that there were problems with it so, on instruction, I contacted Mike Acott, our local concertina expert. He fixed some of the issues but others soon reared their heads so I arranged to have it returned with a full refund. So far, not so good. On advice from Mike, I contacted Chris Algar, who seems to be the biggest source of traditional concertinas (rather than new ones). I was determined to get a traditional one as, again under advice from Mike, I wanted to avoid a new one. New ones have compromise reeds and don't sound as nice as the older ones that have proper concertina reeds. The £750 concertina was a Lachenal, like my 20 button but had mahogany ends and brass reeds so sounded a bit softer.  Chris didn't have anything in that range so I had to look at spending extra money and get a steel reeded Lachenal. There is always a demand from Ireland for these instruments so the price reflects that demand. There were two that I felt were right but the both cost £1,300! I could only do this by part exchanging my 20 button. I was sad to do this but it was the only way that I could go and keep some stash money behind.

Chris lives in Cheshire, some few miles north of Stoke-on-Trent so it was a bit of a hack. I left home at 7am and got back at 6.30pm! Chris gave me £400 for my 20 button which represented a 33% profit. I have been told that buying a new concertina is like buying a new car - you lose money on it the moment that you buy it - but buying an "antique" concertina is an investment. 

I now have a superb Lachenal 30 button concertina. It does have mahogany ends but has been polished so it looks like my old one. It has bone buttons and steel concertina reeds. Having had a look inside, I have found out that the serial number is 124088 - my old one was 74298 (c1885) - so that puts its manufacture somewhere around 1900. 

The only visible differences between this and the old one are the 30 buttons, of course, and less intricate fretwork so this is one of Lachenal's cheaper models. Getting a true rosewood with full fretwork would have cost another £400 - £500  and wouldn't sound any different.

A Family heirloom - I hope

It was my brother-in-law (and sister-in-law)'s 25th wedding anniversary recently. I was asked to make a present for them so I chose a Jolly Red "Love Birds" kit. This took a few months to make as it had 24,336 stitches, including having to work out the words for the names and date.

Anyway, it was done in time. I used a cushion interior and a fat quarter of fabric from "The Cheap Shop - Tiptree" and made it up on my trusty John Lewis sewing machine.

Commuter Chaos

Just finished a Wasgij (Jigsaw back to front). A Wasgij puzzle is one where the image on the box is NOT the image of the jigsaw. The jigsaw is a connected image but not the same. This means that you have only a small number of clues as to how the puzzle goes together.

I have been doing "Commuting Chaos" over the last few days and, whilst challenging, was great fun.

Cracking on now my Open University has finished

Just completed my Open University degree (in case you were wondering, I got a 2.2). Took the time out to finish this jigsaw that has been sitting there for a few months unloved and untouched.

It is a Gibson puzzle - I Love Autumn.

Just click on the image for a full sized version.

Not much has happened

Not for three years, any way. I have been busy on my model railroad and making plastic scale models. In addition, my health hasn't been brilliant so I have spent a lot of time sitting around and napping. Oh, and there was a little matter of finishing off my Open University degree. Back out of that now and "living" again!

I have stopped doing patchwork, for the time being, although I still intend to make a bed cover to replace the one I purchased in Malaysia back in the 1990s (which replaced a previous one bought in the same craft shop in Kuala Lumpur back in the 1980s). However, it will have to wait.

I did make a couple of covers for the large pillows that we have on our bed. These have always been a problem as it wasn't possible to buy any covers. As always, there is one mistake in the make up of these two. They are rectangular rather than square and I set the patterns incorrectly so that one has to be "portrait" and the other "landscape" for the patterns to match. Oh well, you live and learn.

Since then, for my other hobbies, I have been concentrating on sewing tapestries. I find that this is a very therapeutic task in the evening. I am often too tired to do too much but sitting doing a repetitive task like sewing is possible. The first tapestry, from Ehrman, that I started, since the last of this blog, was very complex and I wasn't enjoying it. This was their Kasbah cushion.

Image (c) Ehrman Tapestry - not my sewing!

The beauty that is EBay came my rescue and some kind soul took it off my hands. I invested the funds into another one from the same company. This is their Oxiana cushion. Just to give you a guide as to what is involved, this latest cushion is 16" x 11" with  12 stitches to the inch. This comes out at a whopping 25,344 stitches. No wonder that it took me so much time. It was also complicated by the fact that I ended up one column across from the pattern printed on the canvas which took a lot of thinking. In fact, I got it wrong a couple of times and had to unstitch some areas and re-do them. Ehrman were kind enough to send a few extra strands of thread as I ran out along the way. We already have more cushions than we can use. These three, for instance, sit on the bedroom window cill.

Thus, we had to find something else to do with this newly completed one. In the end, we sent it up to Emma K Framing, in Saxmundham, as they have a tapestry framing service. In the process, they square the tapestry up. This is something that I haven't managed successfully so I am glad to find someone who can do it for me on all my future efforts. Three weeks later, we got the finished article back and we are so pleased with it. It makes a superb wall decoration.

As you can see, it was very complicated with lots of colour changes. However, I am quite proud of it. My next project is an anniversary present and, as such, I can't really talk about it as we want it to be surprise. All I can say is that I have about five months to complete a tapestry that has 24,336 stitches which comes out at about 116 stitches EVERY day! Well, I should manage 500 a night so I won't have to work every evening, thank goodness.

Hopefully, it won't be so long next time to update this blog.

My first attempt at a patchwork bag

This was made from a design by Monkey Buttons. I also bought a set of fabrics from them.

The bag wasn't cheap. The pattern was around £15 and the fabrics cost £40. I could have bought one cheaper - well maybe not!

It was made by cutting out 60 triangles. These had to be sewn together into strips and the strips then combined into one sheet. Once put together, I sewed the bag up. It had fusible wadding between the outer fabric and the lining. This is pressed with an iron to fuse it to both fabrics. It gives the bag some body. I then cut some parallelogram shapes - leaned over rectangles - to make the handle. Again, some fusible wadding went inside. I sewed across the fabric along the triangle edges to give a quilted look.

Here is the fabric before making up.

Here is the completed item.

I already have an order for a second one!

A birthday present for my eldest daughter

As Sam loves a cup of tea, I thought that a tea cosy would be a great birthday present. This is a Jolly Red kit and has taken me quite a few months to complete. I still have to turn it into a cosy, of course.

We are off the The Cheap Shop, in Tiptree on Thursday where I will get some backing material, the appropriate sewing thread, some suitably coloured braid and some oven glove filler. Then I will have to hand sew it all together. I tried to machine sew it last time and it doesn't really work.

Here is the finished tapestry.

Next Project Completed

My youngest - Debbie - asked what I wanted for Xmas. I said a tapestry kit for a cushion, so we agreed that she would pick and pay for a tapestry and I would make it for her new flat.

She chose a 13 x 13" cushion that has a London Tourist content.

It has taken me since Christmas to complete this cushion - mainly because I find sewing a constant colour quite boring so I kept putting off those bits. However it is complete now - and also has a major new innovation for me in my sewing progress. As a 12 count (12 x 12 stitches to the square inch) there are 24,336 stitches in the completed cushion!

The major innovation is that, instead of machine sewing the edges and then leaving a gap for the filling - said gap to require hand stitching to close, I chose to install a zip! First off I bought a zip to fit but soon realised that the way forward was to use a 'continuous' zip; i.e. it comes on a roll and you buy it by the foot. I then worked out how to fit it and the following photos show the result.

I think that this has come out very neatly and am very pleased with the final result. I just hope that Debbie is just as pleased as I am.

Valerie has finally finished Winnie the Pooh

Valerie has been working on this for well over a year and has finally finished her marathon task.

It is very large and very colourful. It will make a great nursery floor covering.

We now need to trim it and iron binding on all the way around it will be ready for the floor somehwre.

Tea Cosy Finished

But not the way I thought.

It proved too difficult for me to sew up the cosy using the machine. I took it all apart to start again.

In the process, it turned out that I had cut the back pieces out incorrectly so I had to throw them away. This left me with not enough material so I went back to Franklins in Ipswich to get some more!

I decided that the only way to go was to hand sew because of the bulk of the braid getting in the way of the sewing machine. So, everything you see is hand sewn. It is finally finished. Not quite as tidy in the dark corners as I would wish but Valerie is very pleased with it, which is all that really matters to me. Oh,and Valerie didn't want a hanging loop if you wonder why that is missing!

First steps in the Cosy Make Up

Always start out with a stupid mistake. This wakes you up - or maybe you have to make two mistakes!

Firstly I cut out the reverse of the tapestry side. The straightening process didn't quite produce a perfectly square item but it really doesn't matter that much.  Except that I had the tapestry the wrong way round  when cutting out the reverse so the pieces only matched if the pattern side of the reverse was inside! Fortunately, I noticed that and then cut out the other two pieces and got all three correct. - Error 1. Then I pinned up the tapestry side of the cosy - and pinned it with the back of the tapestry against the front side of the backing. This would have resulted in the reverse side being on the outside - not good! Error 2. Here is the photo of that:

I have to correct that.

Here is the other side of the cosy - correctly pinned with the outer side to the inside. For the non-sewers amongst you, you sew it up in reverse on three sides and then turn it out - put the backing in - and then sew up the remaining side by hand.

 

Lastly, so that I can sew a correct shape for the non-tapestry side of the cosy, I needed a paper template of the exact size of the cosy itself (without the outer sewing edge. I did this by putting a sheet of paper under the tapestry side (picture up) and then went around the outline with a pin. This left a line of holes on the paper which I joined up and cut!

This now gives me a template to draw around. The line so produced with give me a sewing line.

Well here we go!

Tapestry Blocking works

Well, here is a before andafter. As you can see, the process has worked.

All I have to do now is to sew the thing up - gulp!

Tapestry Blocking

Blocking is the name for straightening out a tapestry. I have never tried this before so it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

Step 1. Dampen down the tapestry - Valerie is horrified that I just ran it under some warm water coming from the kitchen tap! I then dried off the excess carefully.
Step 2. Lay out a right angle on a board.
Step 3. Pin two sides to the right angle.
Step 4. Slowly tease - pull - the tapestry into shape and pin it as square as it will go.
Step 5. Repeat at daily intervals until it is in the right shape.

I am using some cable staples to pin this down because they how the material fine but have a loop to get hold of when you want to pull them out.

As you can see, it is already much straighter than it was. I think it will need another go on Sunday and it should be Ok then to start putting the cosy together.

Oh My - was this one Hard - A Tea Cosy ready for sewing up

When I was in John Lewis in Oxford Street, London back in October, I bought a Primavera Tea Cosy kit. Little did I realise how hard this was going to be. I have only got to the end of the tapestry sewing stage, which was hard enough. I have all the 'fun' of making up the tea cosy next! The difficulty came from the complexity of the pattern. I have provided a couple of close up shots of the stitching plus an overall shot of the completed tapestry.

Making it up as a Tea Cosy

This is the process. Firstly, I have to pin this out on a board so that it is square and then douse it with water. This will need repeating about 3 times but then I should end up with a straight item rather then the distorted version I have at the moment. The distortion comes from the stresses that the slightly different tensions give to the shape.

Then I have to do the following:

1. Sew a backing onto the item and stuff it with wadding. I have some flat, oven glove wadding to use.

2. Make a second copy of this with two backing sheets filled with wadding.

3. I then have to pin the two together, along with some braid to decorate the edges.

4. I then have to sew the whole thing together.

Whew! It will be good if I can do this.

I did speak to Charlotte at Sew existing (the makers of Primavera tapestries) who advised me on the braid but admitted that there sample version in the catalogue only has a ribbon hanging loop - as braid is quite hard! So no trouble here then!

I am starting the finishing process over the weekend so watch this space.

One More Cushion Finished

I actually finished this about 2 months ago but forgot to post a photo.

This cushion is a new make for me - Jolly Red.

This was a bit different from previous cushions because it is a 10 count kit rather than the 12 count that I have been doing. 10 count material has a double weft to add more strength to the stitch. Without the double weft, because the hole is bigger but the thread is the same thickness, the holes may show some opening on the edges. the double weft avoids that. Jolly Red were very good to deal with. They offer extra threads if you run out, which I did with one colour. Within 2 days I got a parcel with an extra thread - well done.

The only problem I found was that, although the kits are a similar price, the 10 count means that you finish the cushion quicker - 12 count is 144 stitches per square inch where 10 count is only 100 so on a 14" x 14" there is only (!!) 19,600 stitches as opposed to 28,224 in the 10 count.

Still it was good fun and I am probably going to make another Jolly Red kit soon - a tea cosy probably.

Here is the finished cushion - it is called "The Tree of Life"

At last - something else is finished

I have had a project on the go that caused some problems at the beginning.

The project was for the Primavera Shaker Village cushion tapestry.

The first problem arose when the kit was delivered from John Lewis without it's normal carrier bag. This is useful for keeping all the wools in one place and provides a colour image of the finished article. The next problem that came along was that the wools seemed to be very much thinner than in other kits making the density of the stitching to be less than normal and giving the surface a variable feel.

I spoke to Charlotte at Sew Exciting, who make these kits, and she helped me quite a bit. Firstly, she was upset that John Lewis had sold the kit without the carrier and was kind enough to forward one to me. With regard to the thickness of the wools, she wasn't aware of any change but recommended that I change my stitching pattern. It appeared that I was doing Continental style stitching so she recommended that I change to the 'English' style. In the continental style, you get two differing patterns on the back of the web where with the English style you get one. She felt that changing the style would result in a consistent tension and improve the look.

I did this and it helped somewhat but I am still fundamentally unhappy with the finish on this cushion. Wendy - my daughter - recommended that I return the kit on the basis that it was not up to standard. However, I decided to persevere and finally finished the item. I think that it will probably look better once it is turned into a cushion.

here it is as a finished tapestry.

Don't forget that you can click on the picture and see a larger image.

I will be turning it into a cushion in the next week or so and I will post a photo at that time of the finished article.

I am now working on a 'Jolly Red' kit for 'The Tree Of Life' and I now have a Primavera Tea Cosy to make after that. I have a stash!

Concertina success

I have been having lots of trouble with the new Concertina. One of the buttons was sticking cause it to play a drone note all the time. I was also havng troible with keeping enough air to play properly.

After a lot of effort involving stripping down the instrument on about 10 occasions, I seem to have fixed the problem and it now plays cleanly. It seems that even when it sounded OK, the key involved was still leaking air because, now that I have sorted the problem, the concertina is completely airtight and I am not running out of the precious stuff quite so often.

Maybe now I can concentrate on playing it again because I was being put off by the problem.